Natural History of British Zoophytes. 339 



lopt off parts remain not long without a new body : if only two or 

 three tentacula are embraced in the section, the result is the same ; 

 and a single tentaculura will serve for the evolution of a complete 

 creature. * When a piece is cut out of the body the wound speedily 

 heals, and, as if excited by the stimulus of the knife, young polypes 

 sprout from the wound more abundantly, and in preference to un- 

 scarred parts ; when a polype is introduced by the tail into another's 

 body, the two unite and form one individual ; and when a head is lopt 

 off it may safely be ingrafted on the body of any other which may 

 chance to want one. You may slit the animal up, and lay it out flat 

 like a membrane, with impunity ; nay it may be turned inside out, 

 so that the stomachal surface shall become the epidermous, and yet 

 continue to live and enjoy itself, f x\nd the creature seems even to 

 suifer very little by these apparently cruel operations, for before the 

 lapse of many minutes, the upper half of a cross section will expand 

 its tentacula and catch prey as usual ; and the two portions of a 

 longitudinal division will, after an hour or two, take food and retain 

 it. " A polype cut transversely, in three parts, requires four or five 

 days in summer, and longer in cold weather, for the middle piece to 

 produce a head and tail, and the tail part to get a body and head, 

 which they both do in pretty much the same time. The head part 

 always appears a perfect polype sooner than the rest. " " And what 

 is still more extraox-dinary, polypes produced in this manner grow 

 much larger, and are far more prolific, in the way of their natural in- 

 crease, than those that were never cut. It is very common, when a 

 polype is divided transversely, to see a young one push out from one 

 or other of the parts, and sometimes from both of them, in a very few 

 hours after the operation has been performed : and, particularly from 

 the tail part, two or three are frequently protruded in different places, 

 and at different times, long before that part acquires a new head, and 

 consequently whilst it can take in no fresh nourishment to supply 

 them with : and yet the young ones proceeding from it, under these 



* From the experiments of Trembley, (Mem. 235,) of a correspondent of 

 Baker's and of Baker himself, it would seem that a tentaculum cannot produce 

 a new body, unless a part of the head or body is removed with it ( Hist. 193-4,) ; 

 but other experimentalists are said to have succeeded when this was not done. 

 For the particulars stated in the text, and others equally incredible, the reader 

 may consult the works of Trembley and Baker, passim. 



t Trembley had several by him " that have remained turned in this manner ; 

 their inside is become their outside, and their outside their inside : they eat, 

 they grow, and they multiply, as if they had never been turned." — Phil. Trans. 

 Abridg. viii. 627 ; and his Mem. 253, &c. 



